Case Number 05811: Small Claims Court

GALAXY ANGEL: STRANDED WITHOUT DESSERT (VOLUME 3)

The Charge

Recipe for mayhem!

The Case

The Galaxy Angels are back, passing time while they await their actual
mission of unearthing lost technology. As usual, a series of small-time quests
falls into their laps, and the Angels tackle this trickle of minutiae in
15-minute doses of fun. Whether they are seeking a trinket someone dropped on
the sidewalk or chasing a runaway tank, the Galaxy Angels confront adversity
with aplomb.

In revisiting the Galaxy Angel gang, I found Volume Three less
amusing than What's Cooking?. Volume One tickled me with its outrageous
humor, sly tone, and proper balance between energy and restraint. It had
undercurrents both coy and melancholy that added sophistication to otherwise
ludicrous situations. It hit the right notes and came across as a breath of
fresh air in the increasingly stale "frantic anime parody" genre.

Volume Three is the same on the surface. It creates absurd situations for
the Galaxy Angels and plucks the same comedic strings. I had a few decent
laughs; nothing like the first disc provided, but laughs are laughs. From
government agents hunting down a robotic chef to a crash landing on a deserted
paradise, Volume Three cooks up wacky plots. Given the brevity of the episodes
and the nature of the punch lines I can't be too specific, but chances are if
you love the series this volume will please you.

Nonetheless, it felt like I'd heard the same tune before, played with more
enthusiasm. What's Cooking? had surreal situations that landed big: a
missile that didn't blow up because he was afraid to die, or the need to go
undercover in a chicken suit, or a cute little hamster that erupts into a
biotech terror. Faux gravity and implied destruction gave it an edge.
Stranded Without Dessert treads the same water, but it feels like the
safety of the sand is inches below our feet. The first episode in this volume
shows a distraught Vanilla: She dropped something and is on a starvation diet
until it is recovered. Milfeulle and her luck go in search of the lost object,
bringing back treasures worth millions. But nothing is enough to sooth Vanilla.
This gag fell flat for many reasons. First, why didn't Vanilla go looking for
the object instead of starving herself in punishment? Why didn't she tell
Milfeulle what to look for? Why didn't the gang stop Vanilla from discarding
priceless treasures? These plot holes are too obvious to ignore, and it made the
gag feel forced. Forte is the brunt of the most jokes, which may help explain my
tepid response: I find her to be the least interesting of the bunch. Even so,
the situations are not as complex, surreal, or multilayered as in What's
Cooking?.

On the brighter side, Stranded Without Dessert amends some of the
audiovisual issues that plagued What's Cooking?. The previous volume's
blurriness and cross coloration is gone. Unfortunately, it has been replaced by
copious amounts of interlacing artifacts. It seems like every fine line and
curve has strobing pixels around it, and the effect is more prominent that in
most anime DVDs I've seen. I view DVDs via HTPC, which is unforgiving of
interlacing errors. Those with standard televisions may not have as much of a
problem.

The audio shows a marked improvement. The dullness and volume warbling have
evened out. Volume Three has a nondescript audio track, which is better than
"noticeably bad" audio. The extras are nearly identical. Shintani
Ryoko (the voice actress for Milfeulle) is back with her minute-long lectures
about the Galaxy Angel universe. The promo clip and textless opening have been
replaced by an extended series of Japanese commercials, which are amusing.

The bottom line is that Stranded Without Dessert serves up six more
doses of Galaxy Angel humor, and that should be enough for fans. The
veneer has worn off a little bit for me, which made this volume seem
run-of-the-mill instead of inspired. But humor is highly individual, and I do
not begrudge the enjoyment of anime lovers looking for some rapid-fire
comedy.